Coconino County Fair 2015 Goes Tobacco-Free

The 66th Coconino County Fair, that takes place on September 4 – 7 in Arizona, is smoke-free for the first time in its history.

Previously, when the Fair took place, Flagstaff’s Parks and Recreation department was creating a special zone for smoking where people could light up. However, this year the Fair goes completely smoke-free and the smoking zone is created in Navajo Ramada, located outside fairgrounds.

Fair manager Richard Conway explains that they made the Fair 100% smoke-free in order to provide people a healthy and family-friendly environment.

The initiative comes from fair planning team, which took such a decision after several meetings. They asked Coconino County Public Health Services District for more information about secondhand smoke effects.

However, they were worried not oly about secondhand smoke but also about the environment, because people leave cigarette butts on the ground and this is no good for nature and kids. Candice Koenker, program manager for Tobacco and Chronic Disease Prevention with the county, told that kids are those tho gather butts from the ground.

Generally, there are more non-smokers than smokers who attend the fair, therefore the support for making it free of smoke was huge.

The fair planning team found it is okay to make a smoking zone outside fairground in order to allow smokers to light up. Generally, on the fair all forms of tobacco are banned. In case someone will be seen smoking on the fair, he will be asked to move to the smoking zone.